


Mermaid Red

by lokiyan



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-13
Updated: 2013-08-13
Packaged: 2017-12-23 09:25:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/924686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lokiyan/pseuds/lokiyan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sansa never wanted to go to the surface until her sister called her a coward. Once there, she found something that made her want to stay.</p><p>Written for A Game of Ships Golden Ships Challenges: Day One Fairy Tales. Inspired, of course, by The Little Mermaid</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mermaid Red

**Author's Note:**

> This is an actually edited version from my Tumblr challenge submission. Now with less grammatical errors!

The first thing Sansa noticed when she surfaced was the sharpness of the sun. The gentle orb that reigned over them below water was harsh and burned her eyes before she blinked away the tears. She wanted so badly to dive back into the ocean’s cool embrace but there was something about the freedom of being above water that kept her there. Everything seemed brighter - sharper. The smell was overwhelming and the wind chilled the beads of water lingering on her skin. She pressed her hand against the side of the ship, feeling its strong body steady against her. She had only seen them broken and sunken on the ocean floor, but now, the oars had power in them and she felt it carry her gently across the waves all the while providing the cover she so desperately needed.

One thing, she told herself. That was all she needed to prove to her stupid sister that she was no coward. One hand above the other, she began to pull herself upward where the voices were. The wood was rough against her skin and her long hair felt heavier than ever it did in the water. Finally, she rested her elbow in the shadows of the deck, behind a thick coil of rope and away from view. She rested her tail - the Tully blue she inherited from her mother - against a knot in the wood and strained to reward herself a peek.

There were men everywhere, dressed in decadent fabrics, much more so than anything Sansa was used to below. It seemed to be a fete of sorts, the pairs of limbs pounding furiously against the deck. Their dance was far less graceful than her mothers’ water dancers, but the sound of the drummers and singers were loud and clear as it carried through the wind to her ears.

She shook her head quickly and reeled for a moment, the weight of her hair still foreign to her movements. When she regained her composure, she swiped the closest thing to her - a small net glittering with purple stones - and prepared to dive back in to find Arya.

But then something caught her eye, golden and shining as nothing she’s ever seen before. The way the sun reflected against the pair’s flaxen locks was so terribly beautiful that she couldn’t help but stop and stare. Father always warned her of how terrible humans were, how deceptive and cruel, but he never told her of their beauty. The two stood to the side as statues of old, draped in scarlet that offset their golden hair and green eyes so bright they rivaled the burning sun. They spun each other around, the man’s hand engulfing the woman’s and for a moment, Sansa wondered how it would feel against her own…

The water was cold again and she had to adjust her breathing and blink her eyes before she saw Robb’s face twisted in worry, his hand still a grip around her tail. “What were you thinking?”

"I-"

"You know better than this. If you had gotten caught… Sansa, I have to tell Father."

"Please! I didn’t get caught! I just wanted to show Arya that I’m not a coward. I won’t do it again." She wrapped her arms around his shoulders from behind and pressed against his back, the way she always did when they were children and she tired of swimming. "Please, Robb. I promise I will be good," she said against his ear.

He conceded (“only if you promise to be very good, shrimp”), and after she vowed never to venture to the surface again, the siblings swam back to their home, now to her a dull and colorless place after feeling the sun’s warmth and witnessing the decadence and extravagance of humans.

All the while, Sansa kept thinking of the beautiful couple above the water, and fell asleep wondering what those two were doing at that precise moment.

******

Father was pleased when Sansa asked him to teach her about the evils of those above - how the Starks and the Lannisters broke their alliance when Tywin Lannister broke their treaty and murdered babes in cold blood. Father said he retreated just in time, since the Lannisters have been out for blood in hopes of dominating the sea surrounding Casterly Rock. He caught their kind in thorny nets and pulled them above water, even the children.

She’d lost her Aunt Lyanna that way - a greedy prince had commanded it of the Lannisters and she was never seen below water again.

She listened with eyes wide, her rosebud lips sewn shut in terror. Arya, on the other hand, delighted in the bloody tales, and swam around with her trident in hand, ready to strike any human who dared endanger their kind. Robb listened intently and only shot Sansa a look when Father warned them against going to the surface and she almost sighed in her exasperation. Her brother was the worst at secrets, just like her.

She couldn’t quite make up her mind about these two-legged creatures. Certainly, Tywin seemed every bit the monster Father made him out to be, but as Sansa perched behind the jagged rocks by Lannisport where the waves hit hardest and no ships dared approach, she could not help but think that his son, the beautiful man from the ship, was not at all the terror Father described.

He was, actually, rather funny.

He twirled his sister around in corridors and drank heartily with his deformed brother. He paid little mind to politics, but was endearingly earnest when he bit his lip to concentrate on his letters. His sword fighting was more graceful than his dancing and his laugh was infectious. His voice was horrid, but he sang boisterously the most vulgar songs that made her blush as red as her hair, her tail flapping excitedly among the rocks.

Before long, Sansa found it impossible to pass a day without catching a glimpse of him. The first day when she failed to sneak away from the other girls resulted in such ennui that for the first time, she ventured to the surface at night. Where the sun burned forcefully bright, the moon was all soft and comforting and it illuminated her skin against the dark of the water’s surface.

“Jaime!” A soft laugh rang from the cliffs her and Sansa hid against the shadows. Jaime… that was his name! She looked up and saw a braid of familiar golden rope hanging from the edge.

The sister.

From where she sat, she could only see shadows of their movements, awkward and tangled against each other. What little Sansa knew about human relations, her exceptional hearing made up for it in spades and she could feel her face grow as red as her hair. On land, is it custom for brothers and sisters to…

She heaved at the thought of herself and Robb doing the same.

A sharp scream brought her attention back and she watched as Jaime dove gracefully into the water, merely a stone’s throw away from her. She was poised to make her escape when his head broke the surface and he waved up at his twin. “You truly worry too much. What kind of knight would I be if I couldn’t swim?”

The sister peeked over the edge. “A smarter one than that who would willingly dive off a cliff. Now swim back out before father finds you.”

“The only way he would is if you tell, and we both know how well you can keep a secret,” he yelled back, his voice twinged with a bitterness Sansa couldn’t describe. It was like a live theater show and Sansa couldn’t look away. Caught up in the moment, her tail flopped excitedly against a nearby rock and it caught his attention. Though she knew her features were hidden in the dark, her heart pounded in her ears. He was so close, bathed in the moon’s glow and his eyes… that magnetic attention he focused on her made it almost impossible to breathe.

He swam once forward and she retreated, her armed pressed against her chest and her back against the rocks. He squinted to watch the outline of her form and raised his hands in response as he treaded the water. “Hey, it’s okay. Just wanted to make sure you’re not hurt or anything. I thought your hair was blood or-”

Her eyes widened but her voice caught at her throat. She heard the scream from above and knew the golden women too had witnessed the wave rising behind him and swallowing the man’s comparatively small body whole. In the vibrations of the water, she could feel him and shivered. His strong arms were reaching for something to grab hold of until the strength, the resistance faded.

“Jaime, wait! I’m coming!”

It would be too late, Sansa knew. She bit her lip for a moment of weighing the consequences before diving in after him, following the smell of blood. His head had crashed into a rock - a smooth surface, luckily - but he had lost all consciousness. At this rate…

He was warm and hard beneath her fingers, and the plane of his back was flush against her front as she dragged him above the rolling waves, her arms hooked under his own. Even with the help of the waves, he was heavy and she struggled to get him to the shallow beach to the west. As her arms grew tired, she wished she had Robb’s strength or Arya’s speed. Her tail ached from her efforts to propel the extra weight, but eventually, she got him above water, his back on the sandy beach.

She laid on her back for a moment, catching her breath, swallowing the cool night air while grains of sand stuck to the back of her arms, her tail and her bright red hair. She had little time, she knew, before the sister and their men would come looking for him and when she felt her limbs again, she propped herself up onto her elbow and drank in the sight of him. He was built like a soldier, strong and tall, wrapped in muscle with a strong jaw and proud nose. His lips, however, were a soft peach and his hair, though wet and heavy, shined gold beneath the moon. It was soft to the touch and as she twirled her fingers in the strands, she bit her lip to withstand the tremors.

They worsened when he unexpectedly reached an arm around her waist and pulled her onto him, his large hand callused against the soft skin of her back. “Cersei…” he murmured. His sister. He thought…

In the distance, she could hear his name in faint echoes and knew they were coming nearer. She glanced one last time at his face and, in a moment of madness, bestowed upon him her first kiss, a prize that should be won in a tourney by a brave water warrior now given away to someone who was nearly a stranger. And he would never know for he thought she was…

She slipped back into the waves just as boots turned the corner and torch light illuminated the beach. When she was far enough to chance a look back, the men had brought him onto their shoulders to carry back to the castle. The sister, she could swear, stared in her direction as though she were waking from a dream.

******

She had never hated her sister more than she did at that moment. Her father held her prized possession, her glittering purple hair net, in his grip. It must have been Arya who told on her. Arya, who pretended to be so excited that she made it to the surface must have been so secretly jealous that she told their father.

“I… thought you understood, Sansa.” It was her father’s tone of disappointment that brought tears to her eyes. She could handle her mother’s warning and her septa’s berating, but her father who thought she was perfect now knew she wasn’t and it was all Arya’s fault. “Jory, bring Lady Sansa back to her room. And keep her there.”

Jory, sweet and gentle Jory, wrapped an arm around her as she softly wept and led her away from the throne room. When he closed the door to the room she shared with her sister, Sansa raged. For once, she thought they could share something and her sister went and ruined it all. “You!” she screamed when Arya came into the room moments later.

“It wasn’t me!”

“It had to have been you! There was no one else! I hate you, I never want to speak to you again!” Why should she, when she could never see her golden knight again? Her first kiss…

“You’re stupid if you think that I would do something that will make father watch us even more closely! Now I’ll never get to the surface myself!” Arya slammed the door behind her, which only served to intensify Sansa’s ire. How dare she play the victim? She ruined everything and now she blamed Sansa for it all.

For days, Sansa felt as though she was wasting away in her room. Few things brought her joy and their fights became so terrible that Arya finally got her wish: Mother moved her to her own room. That was another disappointment: sisters were supposed to be friends.

It was the fourth day when everything changed, when Robb came to her and confessed. It was, in fact, he who told their father. The betrayal hurt like a stab to the heart. Robb was her favorite brother, the one who always took her side, the one who held her hand the first time she swam out of the castle. “Why?” It was the only word she could choke out.

“I saw you with that… You lied to me first, Sansa. You promised you wouldn’t go up there again.”

“So it was revenge?”

“Of course not. I’m trying to keep you safe! The Lannisters, they-”

“GET OUT!” She didn’t want to hear another word, another lie. She was shaking with fury. The protectiveness that she had once found so charming in Robb suddenly became stifling. The entire castle seemed to cave in on her. She turned toward the window and stared into the darkness. She was always surrounded by darkness down here.

“I really was just trying to watch out for you, shrimp.” Even the endearing nickname that was reserved just for them, the one that not even Father could use, felt rough like a mouthful of sand. She heard the door close behind him and was left alone to stew in her anger.

“Poor thing.” She jumped in surprise at the muffled voice.

“Who’s there?”

“A friend.” A face came into view, then a lithe chest blending into a black tail that gleaned purple when he moved. There was something in his stare that made her uneasy, but she opened the window nonetheless. It seemed the polite thing to do. “You can call me Petyr.”

“Petyr… but I don’t even know-”

“An old family friend, shall we say. Your mother and I were quite close when we were younger. You look just like her at your age.” His gaze drifted down the length of her, evaluative and appreciative all at once, and Sansa felt the chills down her spine, her arms snapped across her chest. “Of course none of that is important. What is important is how a friend such as myself can help you with your little… problem.”

The anger was slipping out of her, replaced by a wariness of this stranger who called himself a friend. “What-what do you know of my troubles?”

“Don’t you want to see the Lion of Lannister again?” She swallowed her surprise and nodded. There was nothing she wanted more. “Luckily for you, this tincture I have may solve your problem after all.”

“Why would you help me? My Father has decreed-”

“Let’s just say that I have little love for your father.” His voice was sharp and for a moment, Sansa felt fear like a cold grip around her heart. This man, she knew, was more dangerous than he looked. “And well, I know a thing or two about forbidden love. Nothing would make me happier than helping Cat’s little princess.”

******

It burned. The fire splitting her tail, her lovely Tully tail, into two pale limbs filled her with regret for a moment as the sea unkindly spat her out onto the harsh grains of sand on the golden beach. The sun felt too hot on her skin and her throat, for once, was parched. She clutched the sheet she had brought with her close to her body and tested her legs.

It was… odd, to say the least, but Sansa learned quickly to put one foot in front of the other, one and then the other, one and then-

“Who’s there?” Sansa’s heart jumped to her throat. She would recognize that voice anywhere and sure enough, Jaime Lannister stood, his dwarf brother by his side, mere arm lengths away from her. Pure instinct drove her to dive toward the ocean, to hide, but his hand wrapped around her forearm and pulled her back. The touch surprised and excited her in a frightening way and she pulled her limbs tighter into herself.

“You’re frightening her, brother.”

At his brother’s suggestion, Jaime loosened his grip and ducked to catch her lowered gaze. “Did anyone hurt you?”

She shook her head, her hair swaying across her bare shoulders. What a mess she must look! “I-I’m all right. It’s only that-”

Petyr’s warning rang loud in her ear. No one must know of her origins for surely it would be used against her family. Sansa wanted to walk among these people - beside him - but as angry as she was with them, she would never want to hurt her family. “Were you… attacked, my lady?” The brother, Tyrion, looked on kindly with his mismatched eyes.

“I was… I was shipwrecked.” She cleared her throat that still burned with the salt water in which she used to dwell. “I don’t know any- my family they’re-”

“It’s all right. You’ve been through enough. Let’s get you back to the Rock and into something… decent and we will figure something out from there, yes?”

Sansa nodded timidly. She didn’t know very much about this brother - he never caught her eye the way his siblings had - but he seemed kind enough, enough to further prove her father wrong about humans. He introduced himself and his knightly brother and asked Sansa for her name, to which she clumsily replied, “Alayne.”

Jaime finally spoke up and she nearly jumped at how close his voice sounded after having spied on him from afar for months. “Have we met? You just look so familiar, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.” His eyes lingered on her hair for a moment and she was afraid to breathe. What if he recognized her from that night? By the rock?

“I doubt it, my lord. I’ve never been around here before. Perhaps I just have one of those faces.”

“Perhaps.” He offered her his arm and her smile stretched from ear to ear. This was the sort of romance she came on land for. It was just so in her dreams.

******

“Where did you say you found her?” Cersei Lannister was easily the most intimidating woman Sansa had ever met. From the moment she stepped into the room, her eyes swept over her in judgment. She was in rags, of course, a sheet really, and her hair still dripped sea water onto the floor, but Sansa couldn’t fight the fear of recognition from that night either. “And what exactly do you want me to do with her?”

“On the shore, Cersei, shipwrecked. I could hardly just leave her out there like that. Just… give her one of your old dresses that you grew out of.” Jaime huffed impatiently beside her as though he were ready to do battle with his sister for her.

“What was your name again, girl?”

“Alayne, my lady.” She attempted a curtsy, but her new knees were still weak and could hardly support her long and lanky frame.

“Oh, forget it. That is the worst curtsy I have ever seen. We’ll have you work on that. I suppose I could use a new handmaiden since Tyrion fucked the last one.” Sansa turned red at the vulgarity - never had she heard such words come out of a woman’s mouth. “You will learn quickly or find yourself without employment. Do not get too comfortable, though, we will be leaving for Storm’s End in a moon’s turn.” At this, Sansa looked up in alarm. She had no idea where that was and she had little desire to be farther from her family than need be and farther from _him_.

“S-Storm’s End, my lady?”

“Yes, was I unclear? I am to be married.”

******

Sansa adjusted to life as Alayne quickly. She finished her chores as quickly as she could so that she may help out with the mending and sit by the courtyard while Ser Jaime practiced his sword, strong and swift like the wind. Sometimes it made her miss watching Robb and Jon fight in the reefs beneath the sea, but she banished the thoughts quickly from her head. In the back of her mind, though, she always wondered how they got on without her.

“Say ‘thank you, my dear Lord Tyrion.’” She smiled and bowed in deference in greeting the young lordling. In the days since she arrived, he had been nothing but kind - kind words when she made a mistake and was berated by her lady, kind looks when she knew not where to stand at a feast, and being one who seemed to notice her infatuation with his brother, a kind presence for when she felt particular lonely and pained when Jaime visited her lady’s chambers.

“What miracle have you for me today, Lord Tyrion?”

“I have arranged for a sort of… trial period for you with my father. To serve as his cup bearer. You begin this evening.”

“A cup bearer! But I know nothing of-”

“It would mean, Alayne,” he paused to give her a meaningful look, “that you will remain in Casterly Rock after my sister’s wedding. You will be here when Ser Jaime returns without Cersei Baratheon.”

“Stop bothering Alayne, brother. Unlike you, she works around here.” Sansa stood and curtsied as she was taught and Jaime, who found these little gestures tedious and ridiculous, bowed so deeply that his nose may have touched his knees. He was always quick with his jokes and charming flair, just like the knights in the songs. “Now, dear, would you mind terribly performing your magic on this? I’m afraid Clegane is a ruffian and knows little of the treatment of finer things.” He tossed her the shirt off his back and sighed at the torn sleeve.

“Of course, right away, ser.”

“Don’t take too long, dear. It will not do if I cannot fight with your stitches close to my heart.” Sansa knew it was all in jest, knew what he did with his sister behind closed doors, but even so could not help the blush emerging from her cheeks. Like Tyrion, Jaime seemed to notice as well and smiled broadly before retreating inside.

“So,” she began as she turned to Tyrion. “What exactly is a cup bearer?”

And so she did her best throughout dinner and withstood Jaime’s bemused smirk, Cersei’s seething glare, and Tywin’s critical gaze. At the end of the meal, she was declared young and pretty enough for presentation as a cup bearer. Most importantly, she knew how to hold her tongue, unlike the last one. She was to start after the impending wedding. It would not do, after all, to make inexperienced blunders in front of their hosts.

******

“You would be a poor substitute.” It was the eve of Cersei’s departure and she demanded that Sansa be the one who helped her ready for bed that night and so it was that Sansa found herself brushing the older woman’s hair meticulously before her vanity.

“My lady?”

“Oh don’t do that. I hate when women pretend to be stupid to appease everyone’s expectations of them. If you are going to be wanton with my twin, then just be out with it.”

Sansa was shocked, to say the least. What sort of lady-

“He loves me, you know. Only me. And even when he is inside you, he will only be thinking of me. If you bear his bastards, he will wish they were mine and one day he will wake up and hate you for not being me.”

The words hurt more than they should. After all, what were they to each other except a girl with an infatuation on a fabled knight? Perhaps they hurt only because Sansa knew them to be true. “My lady, I would never think to-”

“Although perhaps Father will pawn you off to Tyrion. Goodness knows no lady worth anything will marry dwarf and you’re pretty enough, I suppose. It’s more than a girl of your breeding can hope for.”

******

The moon shone bright again, just as it did the night she held Jaime in her arms. Cersei’s words seemed to strangle the breath out of her and she nearly ran from the chambers after her dismissal. The sight of the ocean calmed her. All of her wasted efforts, everything she gave up, seemed to burst from within and she couldn’t stop her tears if she tried. Jaime would never love her and she would never see her family again. That was the fate she resigned herself to.

“You always seem to be in some sort of distress when you’re by the water.” She wiped her face quickly as the sound of his boots sinking into the sand drew closer.

“Ser Jaime,” she acknowledged him. “What brings you out here-” She stopped abruptly - he’d never quite touched her hair before.

“It was you. That night by the rocks.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t-”

“I thought it was Cersei who carried me out of the water, but I should have known. She’s always been a miserable swimmer.” He smiled at himself and her heart clenched at the way he smiled at the woman’s mere name. “It was you.”

She knew not what to say. Of her siblings, she was always the worst liar and to be confronted with the shame of her own lies…

He laughed, the barrel of a laugh she loved. “Worry not, child. I fault you for nothing.” His catlike eyes narrowed as he took her in. “You know, for such a timid little thing, you are stronger than you look.”

“It’s… easier to carry things in the water.”

“Things and drowning lords, apparently. Of course, this does mean I owe you my life.”

“You have done more than enough for me, ser. Taking me in, finding me proper employment… I could ask for nothing more.”

“This is true.” Only a moon’s turn earlier and Sansa would have been surprised by his bluntness, but it was yet another quality she attributed to his perfection. “And of course, if I remember correctly, you have already taken the prize normally given for heroics.”

“A prize, ser?”

He curled a hand behind her neck and brought her in for a chaste kiss on the lips. Her whole body, pressed against the cold steel of his armor, was on fire, but not in the way her legs burned when she came ashore. This was a delicious, warm, flickering flame that spread throughout her starting low in her belly.

“Do you remember now?” he murmured against her lips. “Your skin, your back was so soft under my hand. Do you remember?” She nodded before she pressed forward again, not having had quite enough.

Never enough, really.

And then his warmth was gone, his hands on her shoulders and his body an arms length from hers. “Sweet little Alayne has some fire in her after.” He laughed to himself. She stepped toward him again. “Easy.” He backed away, a hand raised as though he were calming a horse. Suddenly, she remembered who she was, who he was, what they weren’t…

“I’m sorry, ser. I forget myself.”

“Clearly,” he said, not unkindly. “I’m pleased, really. A pretty young girl’s attention is a wonderful thing to have. If I were not going away, perhaps-”

“You will be coming back though, will you not, ser? After the wedding?” He must, she thought. He absolutely must.

He shook his head and it was as though all the blood in her body sank into the sand beneath her feet. “I will be joining Robert’s kingsguard. I won’t be coming back, Alayne.” She wanted to scream, wanted to throw up her dinner, wanted… so many things that mattered so little now. “You’ll be alright. My father seems to like you and Tyrion especially…” At her silence, he cupped a cheek to shift her gaze to him. “You are a beauty indeed. Perhaps in another lifetime we could have-” He paused, seeming to have caught himself. His smile was laced bittersweet. “Ah, there I am again, dreaming of the impossible.” He brushed his lips against hers one last time. “Farewell, Alayne.”

She knew not how long she stayed out on the beach on her own, but it was near dawn when she heard a familiar voice. “Poor little turtle dove.”

It was her friend, Petyr, but now he was dressed in finery and walking as well. She questioned it little. Of what limited interactions she had with him, Petyr always seemed to be one to adapt to his surroundings. “If I had known it would end like this, I-” She stopped herself. Would she have done things differently? Would she give up what little time she had in this world so different from her own?

“Unrequited love is a bitter poison I know all too well, sweetling. But fear not, perhaps all is not lost.” She had little energy left in her to be excited. “Your family is frantic from your disappearance and your brother is… not the best with communicating through words, to say the least.”

Robb. Oh Robb. How she wished she could tell him that she wasn’t angry with him. Not anymore. And Arya, what she wouldn’t give to see her angry little face.

Petyr drew from his sleeve the glittering purple hair net that her father had taken from her and held it out. “It has already been enchanted. All you have to do is put it in his wine, dear. As his father’s cup bearer, it could not be so difficult, could it?” He came up behind her and wrapped her hand around the offending garment, the jewels containing the poison meant for her beloved. He murmured into her hair. “Your mother is heartbroken over you. It was she who brought this to me and not only does your reunion with your family depend on it, but her life as well. I tried to refuse, but she always had a way with me.” He paused and she heard the drumming of her heartbeat loud against her own ears. Could she really- “You’re Sansa Stark. Remember that. Feed the spell the blood it requires or Cat will perish. This is your only chance. What do you care of a man who so readily discards you for his own sister?”

******

She could do it. Her fingers clutched the glittering amethysts until her own hands were blue. Just a drop of poison and she could go home and see her family and never return to this wretched place where ladies used vulgarities and men leered at her like some common… common…

But the truth is, Alayne probably could have done it. Work hardened, practical Alayne, but Petyr was right. She was Sansa Stark. Fanciful, stupid Sansa who still thought there was something beautiful in how the man she pined for could give up everything to stay with his beloved, even if the object of his affection belonged to another.

And so it was, she watched the carriages ride out of Casterly Rock beneath the harsh sun with a goblet in her hand. She shed her dress and felt the wind run its fingers through her hair. She brought the lip of the golden goblet to her own and tipped her head back, far, far back until her body followed her. She took so willingly the same fall that he had taken the night she held him and for a moment, just before her blood fed the spell and her body turned to foam, she felt his arms around her, his legs tangled with her tail and she smiled.

It was worth it all.


End file.
